Wednesday, October 03, 2012

(Note: the master table at the bottom was updated October 5 to reflect the biggest family signing ever as Kentucky landed Andrew and Aaron Harrison with a combined projected 16.5 Value Add. South Florida, South Carolina and Illinois also had signings. The master table is now ordered based on an average of Rnk 2 (NBA prospects leave in the draft) and Rnk 3 (they stay with their teams). An average is probably the most accurate, as Kentucky is easily 1st if all four stay, drops to 24th if all 4 leave, and with keeping half the talent they would be 3rd in the country behind Arizona and Memphis in 2014.)

You can check out the 2013 preseason Value Add rankings anytime by going to www.valueaddbasketball.com and putting "2013" in the year field and "team" in the main search field. However, in light of some very good observations in response to my 2014 rankings, I went through a systematic appraisal of the three main elements that will project how good each team should be in 2014.

The first step is adding up the projected Value Adds of everyone currently expected to be on the 2014 roster for all teams. Players who have either signed already, or still have eligibility left and are NOT expected to be drafted after the 2013 season. When we count just those players, Arizona has the best roster going into 2014, Memphis is second and Marquette is third. Here is the first part of the chart that will grow throughout this piece:

2014 Rankings / players expected on roster

Team

2014 roster

Rnk1

Arizona

53.57

1

Memphis

49.64

2

Marquette

45.06

3

Iowa

40.11

4

California

39.77

5

Providence

39.77

6

Notre Dame

39.21

7

Virginia

36.47

8

Stanford

36.12

9

Indiana

35.69

10

Arkansas

35.06

11

Texas

34.82

12

Maryland

33.83

13

Georgetown

32.78

14

Alabama

32.63

15

Florida

32.58

16

North Carolina St.

32.54

17

Michigan St.

32.12

18

Nevada Las Vegas

31.82

19

Kansas

31.76

20

Of course this isn't the whole picture. Kentucky is the 113th best team based just on this part of the equation, because four of their players are expected to leave in the 2013 draft and they have not yet signed most of their class for next year as they can wait until late to take several of the top 20 players. In order to get a grasp on how much value each team would likely get from the 2013 recruits they are currently chasing (freshman in 2014 Value Add), I first looked at what the expected Value Add was for players based on their ESPN Rating.

Based on the new ESPN Ratings scale for prospects, any recruit with a rating of 64 or higher will actually project to add Value. This scale does NOT apply to past classes from 2007 to 2012, as ESPN's old scale gave much higher figures. For example, right now there are only 6 players with a 96 or higher rating, while on the old scale ESPN averaged giving a 96 or higher to 55 players per class. Likewise there are currently just 283 recruits from the 2014 class with a 70 or higher and on the old scale for past years ESPN averaged giving 1,069 recruits per class a 70 or higher. So this year's "70" would have very likely been between an 80 and 90 in past years. However, based on the new system for 2013 recruits only, here is the anticipated Value Add based on ESPN rating:

ESPN 9/30/2012

Value add

96

8.0

95

7.0

94

6.0

93

5.5

92

5.0

91

4.5

90

4.0

89

3.5

88

3.1

87

2.8

86

2.5

85

2.2

84

2.1

83

2.0

82

1.9

81

1.8

80

1.7

79

1.6

78

1.5

77

1.4

76

1.3

75

1.2

74

1.1

73

1.0

71

0.9

72

0.8

70

0.7

69

0.6

68

0.5

67

0.4

66

0.3

65

0.2

64

0.1

63

0.0

While I have been using a place holder to measure upcoming freshman classes, a critic pointed out in my last post that I was not accounting for how many open roster spots each team had to fill in recruitment. To address this hole, I listed out the number of spots each team has to fill for next year. I then looked up the uncommitted 2013 recruits (would be freshmen in 2014 season in Value Add) showing an interest in each team, and I basically assumed the team would get one in five of the kids at which they had a shot. So if a team had 4 spots to fill I assumed they would get the 3rd best recruit they were after, the 8th best, the 13th best and the 18th best - though I had to estimate the curve when I got past the players that actually showed up in the ESPN data search.

I will use Duke as the example for this 2nd step. Duke only ranked 32nd based on the players they already have committed through the 2014 season, with 27.84 in Value Add. However, assuming they get one of the top 5 recruits currently considering them that should add 6 in Value Add (under R1 below for 1st Recruit), then another 5.0 in Value Add for their 2nd recruit, then 4.0, 3.5, 2.5 and 2.4 since they have six spots to fill. When you add what they will likely get from recruits, Duke shoots all the way from 27.84 to 51.24 and moves from the 32nd best roster to the 3rd best roster ahead of Marquette - which is "full" with no spots open for a new recruit. Of course, we know there are roster changes and MU could end up with a big recruit next year, but right now we are just filling empty spots. Here is our new Top 20 once we divide up the uncommitted recruits among the schools they are considering.

Team

2014 roster

Rnk1

R1

R2

R3

R4

R5

R6

likely recr

Rnk2

Arizona

53.57

1

6

0

59.57

1

Memphis

49.64

2

2.5

52.14

2

Duke

27.84

32

6

5

4

3.5

2.5

2.4

51.24

3

Marquette

45.06

3

45.06

4

Kansas

31.76

20

7

3.5

2

44.26

5

Notre Dame

39.21

7

1.3

1.2

0.8

0.4

42.91

6

Providence

39.77

6

1.7

0.7

42.17

7

North Carolina

28.29

30

6

3.1

2.4

2.3

42.09

8

Georgetown

32.78

14

4.5

2.2

2

41.48

9

California

39.77

5

1.6

0

0

41.37

10

Iowa

40.11

4

0.6

0

40.71

11

Texas

34.82

12

3.5

2.2

40.52

12

Florida

32.58

16

4.5

1.6

0.7

39.38

13

Stanford

36.12

9

1.8

0.2

38.12

14

Virginia

36.47

8

1.6

38.07

15

Louisville

29.95

24

3.5

1.6

1.4

1.2

37.65

16

Michigan St.

32.12

18

2.5

1.3

1.2

37.12

17

Connecticut

31.58

21

3.5

1.2

0.7

36.98

18

Alabama

32.63

15

2.5

1

0.7

36.83

19

North Carolina St.

32.54

17

2.5

0.9

0

0

0

35.94

20

Which leads us to the final step, considering whether or not the NBA prospects leave for the pros. Up until now we assume that Noel, Goodwin, Poythress and Harrow all leave Kentucky for the NBA draft in 2013. If all of them leave, then even with the expected great recruiting class again next year, Kentucky only has the 24th best team in the country with 35.03. With UCLA taking the top recruit from them this year and everyone going to the NBA, they are going to have to have some of those four decide to stay for 2014. If all four were to stay, then Kentucky projects to shoot all the way up to a 63.5 Value Add to pass Arizona.

As you look down the list, in addition to the three teams already ahead of Marquette after step two, another 15 teams would pass Marquette IF all of their NBA prospects decide to skip the draft and stay for the 2014 season - so Marquette could drop as far as 19th in a worse case scenario. However, it is pretty safe to assume that at least a majority of these prospects will take the paycheck and enter the draft. The beauty of the 2014 season for Marquette is that even if they do not get another recruit, they are loaded AND do not have anyone on the roster projected to be drafted so they will have a much easier time keeping the team together. In the end we can assume a few of these 15 teams manage to keep their NBA prospects on campus for another year, but if Marquette is not hit with injuries or transfers, they are likely to end up much closer to 4th than to 19th in the country. Here are the top 150 teams in the land for the 2014 season (see Rnk3 at the right), and where each of them rank if they lose their NBA prospects (Rnk2) and if they don't get any more recruits with Value Add (Rnk3).

1 comment:

This equation is BS. Facts say that Evan with U of K losing four starters they are getting a historic recruiting class with 6 McDonalds All Americans and possibly Wiggins...returning Wiltjer, Cauly Stein....They are without a doubt the favored preseason 1. And favored to cut down the nets at the end of the season.